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Twenty Dollar Dinners: Dial F For Food

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    Sat, June 23, 2018 (6:00 PM - 10:00 PM)

The Voluptuous Table

Elgin, TX 78621
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Cost: $20

Alfred Hitchcock, British film maker and producer, known the world-over as "The Master of Suspense," never won an Oscar. This fact is remarkable since the sheer volume of his work, spanning 6 decades and 53 feature films (as well as the popular Alfred Hitchcock Presents television anthology), have won him acclaim as one of the most influential film makers in cinematic history. While it is fairly well-known that Hitchcock had a penchant for choosing cool, icy blondes as his leading ladies and setting up his audience as unsuspecting voyeurs, what is less widely known about him is his complicated and conflicted relationship with food, and the way food persistently found its way into his films. 
 
In the book Hitchcock à la Carte, author Jan Olsson asserts that Hitchcock was also an expert marketer who built his personal brand around his rotund figure and his well-documented table indulgences. Hitchcock's strategies included frequently emphasizing his own girth, making numerous cameo appearances in his work, and using food—such as the frozen leg of lamb deftly wielded by Barbara Bel Geddes in Lamb to the Slaughter—to escort scores of characters to their deaths. 
 
Hitchcock, born the son of a greengrocer, was both gourmand and glutton--he was truly The Man Who Ate Too Much. Known mostly for his excess (a typical dinner would be comprised of  a roast chicken, a small ham, potatoes, two vegetables, bread, a bottle of wine, salad, dessert, and brandy), food also induced fear and aversion (e.g., eggs, cheese, cold meat). An avid student of human psychology, he often played pranks on his cast (sometimes quite cruelly) and gave dinner parties with death-themes or unsettling social constructs. He twice gave dinner parties in which the food was dyed blue--and enjoyed seeing his guests react squeamishly to it. On at least one occasion, dinner was served in reverse; on another, his menu announced "Morgue Mussels," "Vicious-soise," and "Home Made Fried Homicide," among other death-themed offerings. 
 
Many of his movies entwined themes of food, sex, and death; food was presented not only as a prelude to (and vehicle for) sex or death, but also as an aspect that was grotesque or inedible. Think of Frenzy, Lamb to the Slaughter, Rope, Notorious, To Catch a Thief, Psycho and others.
  
The Voluptuous Table invites you to join us on Saturday, June 23rd at 6 p.m. for an evening of Hitchcockian fare and a film screening. Although tempted to serve dinner in reverse order like the Master himself, I've decided to play up the campiness factor instead, with each course offered as a reference to a Hitchcock theme or film. And I have definitely decided NOT to dye your food blue.
 
Two appetizers start out our evening: creamy, rich and luscious Chicken Liver Paté (remember the trunk scene in Rope?) with blue potato chips (a nod to Hitchcock's blue food dinner parties), and Miniature Toasted Cheese Sandwiches (which careful viewers will recall Norman Bates serving--with milk--to Marion Crane in Psycho). Your cocktail, appropriately enough, will be a potent vodka-based milk punch. What could be more comforting than a simple supper of sandwiches and milk while Mother is upstairs in her room on a rainy night? Or more elegant than a rich paté served on a trunk holding a dead body?
 
We next invite you to a buffet-style meal of Smashed Cucumber Salad with Strangled Lemons and Chopped Herbs (a nod to Hitch's cool-as-a-cucumber icy blondes and the violence often done to them), Quiche Lorraine Bites (from To Catch a Thief) with a pastry crust "as light as air," and Best Ever Cold Fried Chicken (a double reference to both Notorious--"I have a chicken in the icebox and you're eating it,"  says Ingrid Bergman to Cary Grant as they enjoy, arguably, the most erotic kiss in film history--and To Catch a Thief--remember the roadside picnic that Cary Grant and Grace Kelly share?). Now, would you like a leg or a breast? There's that double entendre again, courtesy of Hitch.
 
For dessert, we're offering Slashed Black and Blueberry Slab Pie (with references to Psycho, the morgue scene in "Breakdown," an Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode, and Hitch's blue food dinner parties). Have a bottomless cup of Community Coffee (because you'll probably be up all night anyway) or your own little pot of hot tea--we have plenty of British selections. We also invite you to stay for a screening of Frenzy, Hitchcock's 1972 thriller and the penultimate film of his career. 
 
Frenzy, the third and final film that Hitchcock made in Britain after he moved to Hollywood in 1939, is a darkly comic movie that features a classic cameo appearance by Hitchcock and centers on a serial killer who dutifully acts out the classic Hitchcockian food, sex and death triangle. It runs for 116 minutes. The plan is to start the movie by 8 p.m. Disclaimer: Frenzy is not a favorite among feminists, male or female. It carries out the common theme of female victimization that Hitchcock often relied on to drive his plots. We can talk about the underlying psychology of this aspect from a feminist perspective if you wish. OR...we can skip the debate, drink lots of wine and choose another, more benign Hitchcock film--I have several to choose from.
 
This dinner is a BYOB event and is offered for a suggested donation of $20. Please RSVP by Thursday, June 21st by responding to this email or by calling 512-55 EAT 44. We look forward to hosting you on Saturday the 23rd and to enjoying your company at The Voluptuous Table. "Don't stay...home.  [I] know how [you] hate doing nothing" (from Dial M for Murder).
 
In the spirit of always making the audience suffer as much as possible (a quote attributed to Hitchcock),
Vindaloo Tiramisu

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